Two sets of in-laws and newborn

[user1466488499]

Hello, please be gentle with me, first timer here! We're expecting our first child next month, I'm excited, nervous, looking forward to it and also scared.

DHs parents are divorced, both re-married, with no other children so hubby is an only child and our child will be the first grandchild. This is where the issue starts with both sets of in-laws. They're mid-70s, have to be the centre of attention, don't help around the house and expect to be waited upon and taken out for meals. Luckily they live about 300 miles away so don't see them too often.

I made it clear to DH ages ago that I wanted our first 2 weeks out of hospital when he's on paternity leave to be just the three of us to help us bond as a family unit and get to know our child. I want to make sure I'm breastfeeding correctly and know I may well be sore and tired after giving birth.

Now FIL and wife have announced they're not happy about waiting to see their grandchild - problem is that because they live so far away, they'll want to stay for at least a couple of nights and they won't help out whatsoever. DH will spend his time running around after them rather than bonding with his child. As they have no experience with babies, I'll have to keep a close eye on them as well as trying to recover from the birth. I don't want my baby handed around like a plaything to entertain them. I have explained to them how newborns are very sensitive and could they wait a while before visiting but they've spent the weekend moaning to my husband who is now taking their side and says I am being unreasonable. The tiger mum inside me wants to protect and care for my little one and keep him close, not handed around to lazy in laws who won't do anything to help out. The only person I would appreciate around in the early days is my mum who will cook, clean, go to tesco etc. and be invaluable. DH says that if his parents aren't allowed to visit straightaway then neither should my parents - not getting the point that his lot are lazy and expect to be waited upon and stay for days whereas my folks will stay for an afternoon or one day and be brilliant.

Help, maybe I am being very selfish but I don't want my new baby handed around like a bag of sweets to lazy in laws who know nothing about babies and who won't help us....aargh! This is a recipe for disaster when i consider how raging hormones will be and sleep deprived after the birth....

OP, trust your instincts and protect your space. As you say you want to establish bfing and that may take all your time and energy, It's totally unreasonable to be put into a position of having to factor in the needs of others. Two weeks is not long and you will hopefully enjoy this new experience as a family of three. Years ago it was not unusual for babies not to be presented to the world until 6 weeks had passed. In some traditions the mother is protected from doing anything apart from resting and feeding the newborn. If people visited in the early days they brought food not an expectation of being entertained and catered for. So, be firm, don't be made to feel mean and perhaps make some arrangement only after two weeks has passed as you see how things are. If it were me I would disarm them with a lovely long & confiding phone call, asking them about themselves and then about how you feel and state that you will be looking forward to them meeting and inspecting the baby once you feel up to it. Do the inlaws do Skype?! Enjoy it all and relax; it's sooo exciting.

Solong but the first few weeks are crucial to a successful breastfeeding relationship. And statistically, the method of feeding does have a lifelong impact.

Speaking as a MIL and a grandmother, (also a mother, of course), I think you are being perfectly reasonable. I waited to be invited when all my grandchildren were born - I know it's a time for close family bonding. I've always made rules that are: never criticise, make it clear what I can/can't do to help, always be willing to help when I can & when I visit, remember I am not the one in charge here. I get on very well with my DIL and my SIL and have a great relationship with my grandchildren. Your in-Laws need to learn the rules. It isn't about them.

"I've always made rules that are: never criticise, make it clear what I can/can't do to help, always be willing to help when I can & when I visit, remember I am not the one in charge here. I get on very well with my DIL and my SIL and have a great relationship with my grandchildren."

Those two statements are SO connected. You sound absolutely lovely danuta - I bet they can't wait to see you!

God forbid that the woman who actually gave birth and is responsible for his tiny human, shoud want her feelings to come first.
Damn right my baby was mine. If anyone would've liked to have my episiotomy and stitches for me, I might be inclined to share

Reactive Attachment Disorder and the indiscriminate disinhibited behaviour by a significant minority ofchildren removed or relinquished at birth and cared for in institutions before being adopted as babies would cast doubt on your friend's theory Solong - but if it is accurate then it would go to show there is no problem with grandparents not meeting the grandchild until they are an awful lot older than a few weeks...

As others say the first few weeks are about establishing breast feeding - which is about the baby - and about the mother recovering physically andeemotionally. Short visits from almost anyone are fine, but anyone who thinks they are entitled to be hosted and waited upon and treated as a guest who never lifts a finger for an overnight stay or multiple night stay in the home of somebody who has only just got out of hospital in order to satisfy their own emotional or other needs is not a pleasant or decent or considerate person.

The best thing I took away from NCT classes was to let other people bond with my baby and when visitors come around get them to hold baby, leave room and get them tea rather than vice versa. I did this and passed DD1 around loads as you seem quite against. As a result she's never been clingy and is independent confident and outgoing. After DD2 I was poorly in hospital repeatedly and got out little. Few people got to hold my baby and she was clingy struggled to form relationships and her progress socially was much reduced even up to early EYFS. I'd pass my baby around anyday.

As others say the first few weeks are about establishing breast feeding - which is about the baby - and about the mother recovering physically andeemotionally. Short visits from almost anyone are fine, but anyone who thinks they are entitled to be hosted and waited upon and treated as a guest who never lifts a finger for an overnight stay or multiple night stay in the home of somebody who has only just got out of hospital in order to satisfy their own emotional or other needs is not a pleasant or decent or considerate person.

This is perfect.

As a mum of 3 and a grandmother of 2, I'd like to reassure you that what you're feeling is perfectly normal. When my 1st was born, we actually had visitors (and not close family) waiting on our doorstep when we got home, which broke my heart. They literally lifted our daughter straight out of her carseat, took her snowsuit off and passed her from pillar to post while I stood in tears in the kitchen. The moment was ruined, and on top of it all they told my hubby to put the kettle on, and when my daughter needed feeding, told me she was hungry and needed a bottle (i was 1 day into breastfeeeding ). Lesson learned and when 2 & 3 were born, we kept the door locked, told no one when we were home and only welcomed visitors who had phoned and arranged!! You don't get the time back again, it's beyond precious but you will also want to show your baby off too so don't set anything in stone - I'd say 3 or 4 days is plenty with no visitors, but stay in control and make it clear it needs to be arranged 1st and no overnight guests as you won't be feeling your best and you won't to worry about their sleep being disturbed as well as your own. If they love you both, they'll understand - just be really honest and express your concern at being too tired for house guests. And if DH won't do it, pick the phone up yourself. Good luck xx

I continue to be puzzled by the idea of a long lying-in period being pretty much universal in former times. Because logically this could only really have happened in high-status households where it was possible for a woman to be inactive both within and beyond the house - and for other women to have leisure to look after her. It would have to be a pretty big house as well for the woman and baby to have exclusive use of a comfortable bed in a warm room. It seems highly unlikely that female peasants and/or industrial workers would have enjoyed such conditions. Also the high-status women would be the ones who were most likely to employ a wet-nurse, rather than be the ones religiously breastfeeding. (It all seems a bit like the myth of those healthy paleo diets our ancestors thrived on.)

On the contrary it seems to me that today's lying periods are a kind of capitalist fantasy based of private home ownership within very small nuclear families. (One where the mother is the entrepreneur and the baby is the product. Other relatives may be allowed to toil away in a kind of serf-like way if they are lucky. Or they may not.)

I don't want my new baby handed around like a bag of sweets to lazy in laws who know nothing about babies

OP i don't think it matters if your in-laws know anything about babies or not! and your baby won't be "passed around like a bag of sweets"! they'll just give him/her a cuddle every now and then? It won't impinge on the time you'll have with your baby... if anything you'll have a moment for a bath/ snooze/ minute to yourself!

I took weeks to recover after a traumatic birth and house guests were no problem - i just spent time in bed with my baby and guests had to sort themselves out. I made sure that there was loads of food in the freezer they could defrost. You can always retreat to the privacy of your bedroom with your baby.

You might also be surprised by your in-laws. Can you approach this more optimistically rather than looking for them to just be a burden? It'll mean the world to them.

Er, do you know the average life expectancy of the 'female peasants and/or industrial workers' of which you speak, solong?

Also, in logical terms, the private home can't both be a 'fantasy' and a 'real' economic product of capitalism. Furthermore, capitalism is incompatible with the continuation 'serf-like conditions', as Marx makes clear in the Primitive Accumulation chapter of Capital vol 1.

Furthermore, to argue that social reproduction is a 'product' flagrantly ignores the work of a couple of generations of feminists, who have been at pains to point out the way that social reproduction and housework tend to be excluded from male-dominated capitalist accounts of value, and to note that care work doesn't easily fit the standard Marxist model of commodities and value.

I don't think YABU to want time to bond but I do think it's a little excessive to make you ILs wait 2 weeks whilst your DM can see the baby before.

As I'm sure other pp's have said, why not suggest a hotel and 30 minute slots at first? Also get DH to point out that you both will not be waiting on anyone- you'll have your hands full. They raised DH do I'm sure they can cast their minds back to how manic those first few weeks are.

I get it, I really do, but you are maybe being a tad unfair.

It was stressful enough with my own parents visiting in the first couple of weeks and they were trying to be helpful. Trying to recover from unplanned c- section, hormonal ups and downs, difficultly breastfeeding & sleep deprivation was hard enough with short visits let alone long ones. Trust your instincts and do what you feel is right so that you don't end up creating bad feelings by reacting badly to guests and inlaws if you feel they outstay their welcome. If you feel your own mother is a comfort, so be it. It's not about fairness and politeness, it's about recovering from a major life changing/ medical experience & getting to know your baby and new self.

I totally understand where you are coming from, I was exactly the same with our first... Adamant that the first two weeks were for DH, baby and I and I was cacking it that I wouldn't get the hang of the whole mothering thing. It really upset my DH as he is very close to his family. However both his Mum and my parents live at the other end of the country so would need to stay over with us, they are all elderly so are limited in terms of how much they can help, etc, etc.

In the end up, we had her home for 10 days and I was rushed back into hospital with complications. Enter DH's aunt, then my parents and then DH's Mum and sister. They were all respectful of the situation, really helped out and frankly, DH could have been massively stressed out (worried about his wife and having to look after a vey colicky baby on his own). They ended up being invaluable and if we are lucky enough to have a second child, I'll be less hung up on who will be visiting and when.

I think what I'm saying is that we use a mish-mash of debatable psychological theory (Reactive Attachment Disorder) and dodgy history and dodgy politics to justify our needs and wishes.

I think there is something that's quite 21st century - of a particular place and social niche and time - going on about the way in which couples are currently seeking to distance themselves and their new baby from the wider community with 'their rules'.

I think it would have been impossible for earlier generations to have acted in this say.

Or even 'this way'.

I'm always so entertained by the idea that "same rules should apply to both families." Maybe I missed the part where both adult children went through pregnancy, childbirth, and post-partum healing?

Adult wishes are less important than the needs of a woman who has just given birth, and her newborn baby. Anyone too selfish to grasp that is not ideal houseguest material.

There is a significant body of opinion which would say that attachment to the mother is something that kicks in at around 9 months in terms of infant development.

Gosh, is there really? Care to link to it? Because the evidence I've seen shows newborns are so intimately connected to their mothers that being able to be skin to skin immediately after birth has an impact on the chances of successful breastfeed, and even the baby's body temperature is best regulated by close physical proximity to the mother in the very earliest stage. We are, after all, animals. Mammals, to be exact. And maternal and infant biology is rather hormone-dependent, was my understanding.

when I had my first baby we decided just my mum would be around to help for a couple of weeks. This was not received well by in laws and so we gave in and let mil come. Huge mistake. She was aware we weren't expecting her and had to buy an inflatable mattress for her to sleep on. She was horrid to everyone to the point we had to ask her to leave. My advice is stick to what you want. You will never be a first time mum again and having someone ruin the experience for you is heartbreaking

Solong - this, for example.

You might actually appreciate them being around to take baby out for a walk in the pram so you can get some kip!
I can understand where you're coming from in some respects.. After my first we had the inlaws plus DH's brother & family.. His 3 year old niece was very boisterous & I got a bit stressed & took baby up for a bath (signal that they all needed to bugger off) & MIL brings niece up to our teeny bathroom where she proceeds to practically fall on the baby 🙈. In the end I told DH to go downstairs & tell them we needed some rest.

I think you just need to be firm, allow them to visit, maybe make helpful suggestions of local reasonably priced hotels but also ask them to help with washing etc if needs be. I think you might feel differently when baby arrives, both times we couldn't wait to share how happy we were with grandparents. Good luck

Also midwife told me to tell everyone who visited to bring a pie if they ask what to bring. Any pie sweet or savoury as its easy to bang in oven or freezer or have a slice of sweet with a cuppa when visitors come 👍🏻

I am sorry OP that women here are being so harsh and judgemental towards you and all the mums who want some time after delivery to recover before dealing with difficult inlaws .

I had inlaws with me after both my deliveries and though they are decent people and I was used to living with them as we lived in a joint family system it was really hard. I had a bleed after delivery which left me weak . My inlaws are really social and I was expect to sit and entertain their extended family and friends for hours , my FIL didn't like the name we chose, he called our DS with the name he decided on . He and his family pressured me into making that our sons official middle name. I was told by all the guests who came how kids should be left to cry it out, how much weight I had gained , that I should give DS top feed so he can be chubby . I was made like a failure of a mum at my lowest

You might also be surprised by your in-laws

Nothing they do will be right. They just do not stand a snowballs chance in hell.

Also two weeks old don't remember if their grandparents came to visit them or not. It has no bonding quality at all for GPs. I think the best course at that time is to be respectful of DIL s wishes and allow her to recover. If you are sensitive towards your DILs needs at that time it will take you places with your GC later on. And I am saying that even though I am a mum to two boys .

Also those mums who bonded naturally or had no post partum Blues or breast fed kids without difficulty and are dismissive of others who are not able to , I am scared of the type of inlaws you will be